As I’m mindlessly scrolling social or checking one more email, my daughter calls me for the fourth time saying, “Mommy, can you watch me do my flip?” She’s been wanting me to watch her practice her gymnastics cartwheel, and she’s getting more and more impatient. While I look up briefly, I’m quickly distracted again as I look back down at my phone. We’ve all been there. We’ve routinely allowed our distractions to keep us from spending meaningful time with those who matter most.
While our desire is to have focused, uninterrupted time with our children, we are constantly distracted by social media, endless phone notifications, to-do lists, and our relentless mental loads. With each new day, there is always another opportunity to try again and listen more attentively with minimized distractions to our child’s questions, requests, and desire to spend more quality time together.
If you’ve been struggling to fully listen to your child, here are five ways to listen less distracted:
Scheduling uninterrupted time with your child/children is a wonderful way to spend intentional quality time together. While we all have busy and full lives with schedules filled to capacity, it’s important to carve out time with your children. If your time together is scheduled, it will help minimize distractions because the time is limited. It also gives you and your child something to look forward to. To help build up the anticipation, I encourage you to pick a day and time with your child on the calendar and do your best to stick to it.
To optimize your time together, I encourage you to put your phone and other electronics in another room so you won’t be tempted to use them. In addition, set a calendar reminder so you can complete any work beforehand so various projects don’t distract you when you are spending time together.
A big reason we continue to become distracted when listening to our children is we are always on our phones. We spend more time looking down at our phones instead of looking into the eyes of our children, listening to their questions, and paying attention to what they are doing. When we put our electronics down and focus fully on spending quality time with our children, it lets our children know that they matter and we value our time together.
Instead of comparing our child to someone else’s child on social media, we can break away and continue to nurture the relationship we have with our children. Being intentional about putting away distractions is imperative if we want to cultivate new habits of connecting and strengthening our relationship with our children.
Oftentimes, it’s more convenient to tell your child to go play while you continue doing something else. However, I invite you to play with your child to help build and maintain the relationship and spend quality time together. When you play with your child, it is a wonderful opportunity to check in, listen, and laugh together. Playing with your child requires focus and intentionality, and it lets your child know that you are genuinely interested in connecting with them and prioritizing your relationship. Playing with your child also helps you continue to learn your child’s interests and helps to develop their natural abilities and God-given gifts.
Scheduling a fun outing of your child’s choice is a great way to spend quality time together and provide an incentive for you to be less distracted. When a child chooses the outing, it gives them more ownership and keeps them engaged. If possible, try to limit your phone usage so you can fully enjoy the time you’re spending together. The fun outing can be something you don’t normally do to help break up the regular routine of the week. Take pictures to help create lasting memories of your outing. Preserving the moment will be a wonderful keepsake for both you and your child for years to come. (If you have more than one child, try to do these outings with each child one-on-one.)
Often, when our children are talking or asking us questions, we are partially listening because we are thinking about the next thing on our to-do list. Talking with your child and being fully engaged with what is on his or her mind is important in maintaining and cultivating a healthy relationship. For a few minutes, I invite you to be more intentional about minimizing distractions and prioritizing talking with your child instead of casually listening. Your relationship will continue to grow stronger and you’ll be glad you exchanged distractions for quality time.
While the days with our children seem incredibly long, the years are short. We don’t want to look back on the time we spent with our children and regret that we were too distracted to fully enjoy them and make memories. There will always be one more email to check, picture to scroll, or task to complete. Today, I invite you to exchange your distractions for spending quality, uninterrupted time with your child. So the next time you’re tempted to look down at your phone or engage in another ongoing distraction, I encourage you to pause and turn your attention to your child and make lasting memories together.
You may feel an urgent need to return that next email or text message right away, but it can wait for a few more minutes. As our children continue to grow, we won’t be able to regain lost time. It’s important that we continue to maximize and enjoy the time we have with our children. We should begin to realign our priorities and put some of our external distractions down. Distractions don’t have to be the barrier that keeps us from creating meaningful memories with those who matter most.
Today, I invite you to exchange your scrolling for sitting down and spending uninterrupted time with your children. Listen to their joys, challenges, and stories, and don’t forget to laugh! These meaningful memories last a lifetime!
Photo Credit: ©GettyImages/evgenyatamanenko